


Rest, Love

by Wisteria_Leigh



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Not that much angst but enough, Post-Canon, Post-The Raven King, Sickfic, The Barns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:51:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wisteria_Leigh/pseuds/Wisteria_Leigh
Summary: “We should check your temperature for real," Ronan said.“Don’t really care ‘bout the number,” Adam mumbled. “I feel like crap. That’s all I need to know.”“Well I care,” Ronan replied, hopping off the bed despite Adam’s whimper of protest. “I don’t need another person dying in this house.”“Not funny,” Adam said.“You don’t get to decide that,” Ronan retorted.





	Rest, Love

Adam had warned him that morning. A short text, not one that asked for any response.

_Leaving now. Feel like shit fyi._

Not that that warning had meant much. “Feeling like shit” could be anything from a headache to sleep deprivation to pneumonia in Adam-Parrish-speak.

By the time he showed up at The Barns at around 5pm, he sure looked like shit. Ronan and Chainsaw came out to meet him: Ronan to help him carry his bags inside, Chainsaw to pester him for pets and treats. Adam was pale--paler than was normal for a guy who just spent 4 months trapped in lecture halls and behind library desks--except for the telling flush of a fever high across his cheeks and the dark circles beneath his glassy eyes.

“Fuck, Parrish, you weren’t kidding,” Ronan said, the gravel driveway crunching beneath his boots as he approached the Hodoyota.

Adam simply shrugged, pulling his Yale sweatshirt in tighter against the cold December evening. “I told you,” he murmured.

This was not the first time they’d seen each other since Adam had gone off to school. Adam struggled to find time in his busy schedule packed with coursework, studying, hours working at the library desk, and the occasional extra-curricular to make the long drive from New Haven to Henrietta. Ronan, however, had found at least one long weekend a month to trek up to Yale University, where he could watch Adam study beneath the yellow glow of his desk lamp in person instead of through Skype. Still, there was awkwardness in reuniting, butterflies of both excitement and trepidation, both unsure how to start again after weeks apart.

Usually it began with a litany of quips back and forth, the rhythm of their conversations easiest to slip back into. They’d jostle shoulders on their way inside, a few playful pokes or punches maybe. Both would smile, uncontrollably, despite their mutual desires to play it cool. Neither could ever play it cool.

Once settled in Adam’s dorm room, sitting together on Adam’s bed, shoulders and arms and hips and legs flushed together, electricity sparking across every square inch, it wouldn’t be long for insults and playful roughhousing to turn into something more. Ronan tickling the sensitive spot at the nape of Adam’s neck, his thumb gently stroking his cheekbone before he pulled his hand away. Catching Ronan’s hand mid-strike, their fingers intertwining before Ronan brings each of Adam’s finger to his lips. Ronan pining Adam to the bed in an attempt to wrestle his phone from his grip to prank-text Gangsey, both breathing heavily, faces flushed and drifting closer and closer together, before Adam runs his fingers through Ronan’s freshly-buzzed hair.

That initial touch always sends their hearts racing, yet it’s always performed with uncertainty. Want, overwhelming want, but also consideration. A _is this okay_ , even though both know it is, and would almost always be. Yet it has to be reasked. Reaffirmed with every reunion.

Whoever longed more would kiss first.

And in the space of a breath they’d go from careful to ravenous, starved of their opposite for way too fucking long, demanding and offering and pleading with grips and tongues and moans as every inch of them is devoured by the other. The kind of God-I-Missed-You-So-Fucking-Much intimacy that is two-parts worth the wait and one-part embarrassing.

And finally, they would be back to where they left off. Cuddling, casual touches, remembering exactly how they fit together. Certain and secure.

Ronan itched to cradle Adam’s haggard, beautiful face in his hands, to wrap his arm around Adam’s slumped figured and let him rest his weary head on his shoulder. To carry Adam, even, just scoop up his sick fucking ass and get him into bed where he damn well belonged because my God this stupid shithead drove 7 fucking hours with a fever what sort of moron does that.

Instead, he stood the customary few feet apart, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his ripped jeans, anxiously digging a hole in the driveway with his foot as Adam exerted herculean effort just to drag himself & his backpack out of the shitbox and yank open the always-jamming backseat door.

Ronan sighed, or maybe growled. Possibly both. Phase 1 of whatever this asinine long-distance-relationship ritual was was always the worst. And Adam was taking far too long to figure out how to carry things. And _god_ it was fucking cold out.

Patience had never been Ronan’s virtue. He didn’t bother asking permission before he shouldered his way in front of Adam and grabbed for the duffle in the back seat.

“I got it,” Adam mumbled, nevertheless stepping out of Ronan’s way.

“Don’t be a shithead,” Ronan retorted with a roll of his eyes.

Adam didn’t protest. Amazing how much less of a fucking do-it-myself nightmare he was when he was ill. A true Christmas miracle. Instead, he hovered by the open door.

“Go sit the fuck down or something; inside, where it’s not below freezing,” Ronan demanded. “I’ve got it.”

Adam did as he was told. Ronan listened for the heavy steps up to the porch, and the creak and thud of the screen door as he grabbed the rest of the bags. At least Parrish could walk ten feet without keeling over. That was a good sign.

Ronan took Adam’s stuff upstairs and dropped it in his room with way more care and consideration than he ever paid his own stuff. Adam was already there, changed into an old pair of sweatpants (were those Ronan’s? Maybe. Probably. Whatever, no one was complaining), scrolling through something on his phone that he’d already plugged into the wall. His tired eyes squinted against the light of the screen, arms crossed and body tense as if he were freezing. He probably was.

Fuck the phases, rules, whatever the hell you wanted to call them.  

Ronan wrapped his arms around Adam’s waist and kissed his temple. Adam’s body loosened a little, only to tense against a shiver before melting back into Ronan’s arms.  

“Grades,” he mumbled, answering an unasked question.

“Spoiler alert, you got straight fucking As,” Ronan replied, lips tracing down his jaw. “Can you put the phone down?”

Adam scoffed. “Probably not.”

“Probably can’t put the phone down? Because we both know the grades are a definite.”

“The bio exam was fuckin’ hard,” Adam replied softly, voice strained.

“Dude, you summoned plants on command for, like, half a year. What the hell do you mean ‘it was hard?’”

“Botany isn’t Biochem,” Adam said with a huff.

“Same fucking difference,” Ronan snorted. “Put the damn phone down.”

Adam obliged, and turned into Ronan’s chest. They stood like that for a few minutes, Ronan rubbing small circles at the top of Adam’s spine while Adam tried very hard to resist the fever-chills raising gooseflesh across his overheated body.  

“Can we lay down?” he asked, voice muffled in Ronan’s shoulder. “I’m tired.”

Ronan replied by kissing his temple again and guiding him towards the bed.  Adam clammored into the duvet, settling among the pillows and curling himself into a ball as another chill shook through his body. Ronan followed, staying on top of the blankets and sitting with his back against the headboard, flush against Adam’s side. He pressed the back of his hand to Adam’s clammy forehead and hissed.

“Jesus, you’re burning up,” he said.

Adam nodded, eyes closed contentedly as Ronan grazed his cheekbones with his knuckles. “Felt it comin’ on in the car. I reckon it got bad near West Virginia.” He didn’t bother masking the accent, letting his Henrietta drawl drip off his tongue with his fever-slurred words.

“West Virginia?”

“Took 81,” Adam explained. “Didn’t wanna deal with New York. Or Jersey. Or D.C.”

“Who the fuck ever wants to deal with D.C.”

“Declan.”

“And we all know what sort of bastard he is.”

Adam breathed out a laugh, and they lapsed into silence.

“You shouldn’t have driven,” Ronan reprimanded gently.

Adam scoffed. “You, of all people, don’t get to dish out drivin’ advice.”

“There’s a difference between reckless driving and stupid driving.”

“Whatever,” Adam said. “Just know the irony ain’t lost.”

“Only you would remember what fucking ‘irony’ is while your brain is frying.”

“You gonna stop talkin’ and let me sleep anytime soon?”

“Take some Tylenol first, then I’ll consider it.”

Adam groaned, but sat up obediently when Ronan returned with a glass of water and a bottle of pills.

“Take two,” Ronan instructed. Adam downed them without complaint.

“You gonna be good here alone for a bit?” Ronan asked as Adam settled back down. “I got some shit to do.”

“Mmm,” Adam said by way of reply.

“Cool. Don’t die while I’m gone.”

“Gonna try my hardest,” Adam murmured.

   

#

 

Ronan couldn’t spend more than twenty minutes dealing with paperwork on a good day; with Adam around, his tolerance was 15 minutes; with Adam feeling like Death sculpted from flaming shit, it was 10 minutes. And even that was only six minutes of productivity and four minutes of his eyes constantly flickering to the clock, leg jittering as he all but physically restrained himself from checking on Adam again until it was a more respectable time.  

Ronan had the door to the study open, and had left the bedroom door open (amazing how you could do that without fear of noise disturbance once a certain hooved little girl wasn’t rampaging across hardwood floors screaming like a maniac at any given hour of the day [or night…]), hoping that if something were to happen, he’d hear it.

It’s not that Ronan was convinced the boy was going to die. Adam was just sick. Feverish, yes, and miserable, sure, and probably exhausted from driving 7.5 hours (revised from his earlier count now knowing that dumbass added an extra 20 minutes to his drive by taking the long route, that fucker), but he wasn't seeing lights at the end of tunnels or any of that shit. Really, he worried what Adam’s mind would do to him when all that shit he internalized let loose under slacked controls.

Ronan had been sick before. He knew what fever-induced nightmares looked like with his fuckload of trauma, and Adam’s dreams would probably give his a run for their money in the Suffering Olympics. Except Adam wasn’t going to pull a mutated alligator-vulture-viper hybrid with lava breath out of his mind.

At least, he probably wouldn’t do that.

Maybe he should go check, just to be sure.

Each time Adam was still sound asleep when Ronan checked in, his worry eased a bit more. Adam was restless and shivering beneath the covers, as expected, but he looked a bit less flushed, and definitely wasn’t about to rip something awful from that delirious, beautiful, way-too-smart-for-anyone’s-own-good mind of his.  

Eventually, Ronan was able to get work done. He went a full hour without leaving the desk (a new record he’d have to remember to brag about), did one final check on the herds just after sundown, and refueled the woodstove that kept the house from turning into a glacier before he allowed himself another trip upstairs to check on Adam. And, to no one’s surprise, he was exactly as he’d been before.  

 

 

#

 

Adam was dragged into the waking world by some internal clock that decided three hours worth of sleep was good enough for the boy who usually lived life on six or less. It took him a solid five seconds to remember that he was not in New Haven; that the sheets smelled like moss and campfire and reckless decisions because he was at The Barns, because he had driven here today. In the fog of waking up, he had no idea what time it was, not even a guess. The gap between his drive here and waking up among Ronan’s luxuriously soft duvet and pillows and sheet felt like approximately 24.5 years ago and not a measly three hours prior.

He groaned, the fever announcing itself with ice in his veins and a heatwave just beneath the surface of his skin.

The lights were still off and the sun had long since set. A string of mini ORBMASTER lights (ORBMASTER JR. as Ronan prefered to call them), floating calmly in the angle where the ceiling met the wall, triggered their gentle glow when Adam reached for his phone. 9:05pm. Not what he would’ve guessed.

“Grades up yet?” Ronan asked from the doorway, glass of water in hand.

“No,” Adam sighed. “They still have a few days. Probably won’t get ‘um until them.”

Adam put his phone back on the table and wormed back towards the wall to give Ronan space to sit. He sat up just long enough to drain the glass, quick to burrow back under the covers and close his eyes against the headache blooming at the front of his skull.

Ronan ran the back of his hand along Adam’s flushed cheek.

“You’re still warm,” he said.

“No shit,” Adam murmured in reply.

“Isn’t this crap supposed to be a fever reducer?” Ronan grumbled, scanning the back of the pill bottle with disdain.

“It’s generic tylenol,” Adam sighed. “Not magic.”

“Shouldn’t be paying ten dollars for shit that doesn’t work magic.”

Adam huffed out a laugh. “Reckon you’re spendin’ too much time around me, Lynch. I was thinkin’ the same,” he said

“I’ve never said your cheap principles were wrong,” Ronan snorted. “Just that they could suck my dick.”

Adam hummed in reply, his slight smile fading into a grimace as a shiver raced through his body.

Ronan waited for the chill to subside before gently brushing Adam’s hair off his sweat-slick forehead.

“Need anything?” he asked softly.

Adam shook his head and made a soft noise of refusal.

Ronan grabbed his empty water glass anyway.

“I’ll turn off the lights,” he announced. “Text me if you need shit.”

He waited for the usual snarky retort about his phone, but Adam had already drifted back to sleep.

 

#

 

Ronan slept in Declan’s room, not wanting to disturb Adam once he’d fallen back asleep. He’d had the foresight to turn off both his alarm and Adam’s before shutting off ORBMASTER JR. Even without the alarm, he woke before the late-rising winter sun.

He refilled the cow troughs and milked them, spread feed for the chickens, and had started repairing the planter all before sunrise. When he stopped inside to warm up his hands and drink a cup of coffee, Adam was still sound asleep deep within a cocoon of blankets.

More chores, more machine maintenance, and by 10am Ronan needed that second cup of coffee. As he poured round two into his favorite novelty mug, coughing shattered the silence of the farmhouse; maybe it was just because it was so quiet, or maybe it was because Adam’s lungs were trying to forcibly expel themselves from his body. Regardless, the fit rattled Ronan’s lungs just listening to it.

Ronan trekked upstairs, finding Adam doubled over in the bed coughing the last few hacks into the crook of his elbow. His forehead glistened with feverish sweat, hair mussed and messed from restless sleep.

He saw Ronan, moaned, and fell back into the bed.

“How’re you feeling?” Ronan asked, leaning against the doorframe.

“Like shit,” Adam croaked, arm draped over his eyes as protection against the pale sunlight filtering through the curtains.

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Yesterday. I think. A granola bar on the way here.”

“Try eating something. That might help.”

Adam made a face.

“I’m not talking a five-course meal, Parrish. Just a fucking popsicle or something.”

He still grimaced.

“Have it your way. You’re gonna fucking puke if you take meds on an empty stomach, though.”

Adam, already reaching for the pills and glass of water, grumbled something and took another dose anyway.

“Your funeral.” Ronan replied to his defiant stare with an easy shrug.

Sure enough, twenty minutes later, Adam was retching into the toilet.

“Wanna tell me I was right now, or save the groveling for later?” Ronan asked, smirking from the bedside with gatorade and a sleeve of crackers in hand.

“Fuck off,” Adam groaned as he trudged from the bathroom, voice painfully hoarse and face paler than Ronan thought possible. He was shaking as he climbed back into bed.

Ronan passed off the gatorade. Adam took tiny sips, wincing with each swallow. He sighed.

“You were right,” he said, defeated and miserable.

"I’m always right,” Ronan replied.

Adam scoffed, grabbing a few crackers from the sleeve.  

“God this sucks,” Adam said.

“What? Being wrong?” Ronan asked.

“Asshole,” Adam replied. “No. Being sick. On break.”

“Yeah, that blows.”

Adam coughed into his elbow, wet and harsh, as Ronan flinched away.

“Man, what did you do? Lick the walls of a daycare?” Ronan asked gently, combing back Adam’s hair to rest his palm against his forehead.

“Pulled a couple all-nighters this week,” Adam mused, voice crackling miserably. “Didn’t drink enough water. Took a nap on a library desk.”

Ronan slid his hand down to Adam’s burning cheeks. “Well there’s your answer, dumbass. You think they clean that shit?”

“Probably not.”

“Exactly,” Ronan said. He held the back of hand against Adam’s cheek for a bit longer, knowing Adam appreciated the cold contact. “We should check your temperature for real.”

“Don’t really care ‘bout the number,” Adam mumbled. “I feel like crap. That’s all I need to know.”

“Well I care,” Ronan replied, hopping off the bed despite Adam’s whimper of protest. “I don’t need another person dying in this house.”

“Not funny,” Adam said.

“You don’t get to decide that,” Ronan retorted.

Adam couldn’t argue.

His temperature was 102.3. “You have a fever,” Ronan announced.

“Wow, never would've guessed,” Adam said with a roll of his eyes, and took another sip of gatorade. He shivered, eyes shut tightly for a moment.

“You good?” Ronan asked.

“Headache,” Adam murmured.

“Well, if you hadn’t puked up the meds…”

“Shut up,” Adam groaned.

Ronan smirked, rejoining Adam on the bed. Adam laid with his head in Ronan’s lap for a bit, Ronan playing with his sticky, sweaty hair and massaging Adam’s throbbing head as best he could.  

“Did you tell Opal that I’m sick?” Adam asked suddenly.

“Yeah. Before you got here yesterday. She screamed at me.”

“What’d she say?"

“She literally just screamed. For, like, five minutes straight. Fucking obnoxious.”

“Sounds ‘bout right.”

“Kid needs to chill the fuck out, honestly.”

Adam smiled. “She takes after you.”

Ronan shifted Adam to face him. “I am perfectly fucking chill,” he said, punctuated with a kiss to Adam’s forehead.

“Hey, when you said popsicles before…” Adam started.

“Purple, orange, or red?”

“Red.”

He returned with two popsicles, a washcloth, and his laptop.

“What’s that for?” Adam asked, nodding to the laptop as he sat up slowly.

“Believe it or not, watching you sleep is about as entertaining as watching paint dry,” Ronan said. He peeled the wrapper off Adam’s popsicle and handed it over.

“You’re gonna sit in here?” Adam asked.

“That’s the plan.”

Adam couldn’t figure out why that assertion made him angry. Not angry, but...annoyed. Maybe even a little guilty. The threads he could usually effortlessly trace between his thoughts and their emotional reactions had been burnt to ash.

“I’m probably contagious,” Adam said.

“Probably.”

“You’ve got farm shit to do,” Adam tried again.

“Yep.”

“You’re going to be bored.”

“What’s your point here, Parrish,” Ronan demanded, clearly very done with this tug-of-war.

Adam sighed, frustrated and queasy and feverishly uncomfortable and still shaking from vomiting the meager contents of his stomach into his boyfriend’s toilet. “You don’t have to waste your time to hang out with me,” he bit out, harsher than he intended it.

“Is that really your problem right now?” Ronan met his glare with a raised brow. “You want me to leave?”

Adam opened his mouth to say something they both knew would be a blatant lie, and Ronan leveled him with a look.

It was no use. He couldn’t think properly. Couldn’t articulate. Couldn’t understand why emotions were being triggered. Adam merely sighed and looked away in defeat.

“Exactly,” Ronan snapped. “Now shut up and eat your damn popsicle.”

He did. And, much to his chagrin, it did make him feel just a little bit better.

“This might help, too,” Ronan said, handing Adam the washcloth he had just soaked in cold water.

Adam took it, mumbled his thanks, and laid it over his forehead.

Ronan settled next to him, opening up his laptop and munching away on his own popsicle (“What sort of psychopath bites into a popsicle?!” Adam had asked last summer, completely mortified by Ronan’s absolute lack of popsicle-eating class.)

He put on one of those overdramatized competition cooking shows: a genre he’d recently discovered and now unironically loved.

“Want the sound on or off?” he asked.

“Keep it on,” Adam mumbled, eyes already fluttering shut. He used the last bit of his energy to slide the washcloth off his forehead--Ronan took it and placed on the nightstand--and shimmy closer into Ronan. 

Adam dozed off, curled into Ronan’s chest.

Ronan got through an episode and a half, as well as a few spreadsheets of farm inventory (impressive, given he was typing with only one hand), before Adam showed signs of life again.

He stirred, face twisted into a grimace as he coughed weakly.

“Hey,” Ronan said softly, pausing the show to card his fingers through Adam’s hair.

“Hey,” Adam rasped.

“Feeling better?”

“No.”

“Still can’t take the meds yet,” Ronan said.

Adam moaned.

“It’s your own damn fault, Parrish,” Ronan shrugged.

“I know,” Adam grumbled, rubbing his temples with trembling fingers. He reached across Ronan for his phone.

“No grades yet,” Ronan said. Adam paused.

“You left it open,” Ronan explained. “Figured I’d check. I’d love to be right two times in one day.”

Adam scoffed, but withdrew his hand. “Thought you were always right,” he mumbled.

“Fuck yeah I am. Glad you’ve caught on, Parrish.”

Adam rolled his eyes, but settled deeper into the nest of blankets & pillows he’d made. “Want to put that show back on?” he asked softly.

“Hell yes,” Ronan replied, placing a gentle kiss along Adam’s hairline. “You missed it; that one asshole didn’t listen to that one know-it-all fucker on his team and is about to royally fuck. His. Meal. Up.”

Adam, in fact, didn’t get to see that asshole royally fuck his meal up and get eliminated. He drifted back asleep long before the judging began.

 

#

 

Ronan was pretty sure Adam had never slept this much in his life. Except that one 18-hour snooze bender Persephone sent him on on his birthday a few years back. But this was a close second, and would probably surpass that record soon enough.

He needed it, obviously. But in Ronan’s world, every sleep that passed without incident upped the chances that the next sleep would be a bad one. And Ronan felt like probability was no longer in Adam’s favor.

Sure enough, Adam’s tenuous control lapsed by early afternoon.

It started slowly. Ronan had only snuck away for a few minutes to answer a phone call from Matthew and do a quick check on the animals. But he was back, now 10 episodes deep into season 10 of this show and nearly vibrating from another cup of coffee. He glanced over at Adam during a lull in the action, to find his brow furrowed and mouth pressed into a tight line. He looked….not quite like he was in pain, but definitely wasn’t comfortable. Ronan assumed it was the fever. He adjusted to turn more towards Adam anyways.

Then, the tremors started. Small things at first. A few fingers twitching, his cheek reacting as if someone grazed it.

Then he shook, moaning softly in his sleep. His hands twitched harder, tightening around a fistful of the duvet.

Definitely a nightmare.

Ronan turned the volume down on his laptop. He watched Adam shiver and twitch, his chest tightening with every rasping whimper from Adam’s cracked lips.

Adam had nightmares. They all did. They were fewer and farther between now, then they were last fall & winter, but Adam and Ronan had both woken up to the other’s whimpers or thrashing more times than either cared to count since then.

He knew better than to touch him right now. Pulling Adam out of a nightmare with touch would make it worst. It always made it worst. Cuddling cornered him in the not-so-distant memory of a dilapidated trailer kitchen, or trapped under his bed as his father paced back and forth waiting for him to finally emerge, or bound by red ribbon in the back of the BMW. A hand to his shoulder or a gentle caress along his cheek was a punch, a shove into the wall, or maybe the slap that sent him careening down the trailer steps. And when he woke up--curled into a shuddering ball; guarding himself against an unseen threat; covering his bad ear with his hands as if maybe this time he could protect it--he’d feel ashamed. Humiliated. Upset by how hurt Ronan looked every time he flinched away right after, or snapped at him to “ _stop_ touching me, please just _get away_ from me.” Angry at himself for being enslaved to such primitive instincts. Riddled with anxiety from whatever horrible memory his mind had forced him to relive.

Ronan hadn’t understood. Well, he had on a rational level; Adam had been hurt by touch too many times in his life. But on a basic, instinctual level? Ronan didn’t get it. And it frustrated him. Ronan, the boy for whom feelings were so visceral, who experienced the chaos and complexity and beauty of world by touching or hitting or shaking or holding it gently in his arms, who expressed himself through punches and gestures and who told Adam he loved him long before the words had formed on his tongue by knowing exactly where to massage Adam’s back and what spot on Adam’s head could be rubbed to soothe a headache and how fingertips dragged feather-light along Adam’s hip bone could make him whisper Ronan’s name with more affection and want than any other touch could.  He didn’t get how Adam could have divorced himself so fully from what it meant to be human, to interact physically with the world, to find comfort and stability in the touch and feel of everything around them. He thought that, maybe, he could fix that.

It had taken months, a few arguments, some bad apologies, and then a few real apologies for them to finally reach understanding. The rule was set: Ronan wouldn’t touch Adam until he was awake.

Thankfully, Adam’s usual nightmares weren’t long. Only a few minutes of a wrinkled brow and whispered whimpers before his eyes would snap open and he’d sit up to scrub his face with his hands and breathe deeply through his racing heartbeat. If Ronan woke up, too--which he did most of the time, but not always--he’d trace up and down his spine while Adam sat with his knees drawn to his chest and his head held in his hands. Once his heart slowed and his body stopped trembling and his breathing didn’t need intentional, rhythmic regulation, Adam would run a hand through his bedhead, apologize weakly, and Ronan would pull him back down into the bed with an expletive-laced admonishment for the apology.  

This one, however, was not a usual nightmare.

Adam’s face scrunched tighter and tighter, fingers and legs twitching harder and faster. Breaths came short and haggard, almost panting. Whimpers crescendoed into moans.

“Adam?” Ronan whispered carefully. He knew he shouldn’t touch him. Had learned that lesson the hard way, ten times over. But this was different.

Adam was crying.

“Adam, hey,” Ronan said, gentle but urgent. His chest hurt, watching as tears rolled from beneath Adam’s squeezed-shut eyes.

Fuck the rules.

Ronan touched Adam’s hand. Gave it a comforting squeeze. Tried to loosen his white-knuckle grip on the blankets.

Adam woke up like he’d been dunked in ice.

His eyes flew open as he snapped forward at the waist with a cry. His gaze darted around the room, terrified, trying to catch his breath between sobs.

“Adam,” Ronan said, moving the laptop off his lap. “Dude, you okay?”

Whatever Adam feared was in that room with them, whatever panic his feverish mind had started, seeped out of him with a ragged exhale. Adam fell back onto his side.

“Jesus, fuck,” Adam rasped, supporting himself on one forearm and scrubbing his eyes with his other.

“Nightmare?” Ronan asked softly.

Adam’s chest was heaving, tears still coursing down his flushed cheeks. “Fuck,” he moaned, voice tight and rough as sandpaper.

“Hey, hey, you’re okay,” Ronan whispered. He reach out a hand for Adam’s shoulder. Adam flinched away, reflexively, and Ronan withdrew immediately. But the touch, even if brief, anchored him. He took a few deep breaths, and fell back into the pillows.

“Shit. Sorry,” Adam said, voice unsteady. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. “God. Sorry.”

“Why are you fucking apologizing?” Ronan asked, not an ounce of venom in his voice.

Adam didn’t have an answer. He just shook his head and exhaled shakily.

Ronan propped himself up on his forearm to lay beside Adam. He waited, not touching him, desperately wishing he could, leg jittering as he restrained himself and waited for Adam to invite him back.

Adam continued to breathe, every exhale just as shaky as the one before it, pausing only to sniffle. “Fuck,” he whispered.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Ronan offered.

Adam sniffed again, and rolled over into Ronan’s chest. That was enough of a signal. Ronan wrapped his arms around him, holding him to his chest, tight enough that Adam would feel guarded but not so tight that it would cause him to panic. A careful balance Ronan had learned a long while ago. He pressed his lips to Adam’s temple (which was, in Ronan’s Very Professional Medical Opinion, still far too warm) in a long, steadying kiss.  

“My dad,” Adam managed to say. Ronan pulled back so Adam could burrow his face into his shoulder. “The demon. Everything just. God. Shit. I woke up and saw him. Saw them. A-At least I think I was awake. I don’t know. I just. And they were in Cabeswater with me. And it wouldn’t do as I asked, wouldn’t help anymore. And. Fuck.”

His words began to falter, sticking in his raw throat.

“You’re okay,” Ronan said, stroking down his spine and through his hair. “You’re safe. The fever is just fucking with your brain.”

“I feel so fucking shitty,” Adam admitted. It was almost a sob.

“I know.”

“I hate this.”

“I know.”

Ronan tightened his grip on Adam’s trembling, feverish body, whispering calming words into his hearing ear, like “You won’t be sick forever” and “You know I’d kick your dad’s ass to hell and back if he ever came near you again” and “Four hours are up, you can take another dose now.”

Ronan’s own special brand of calming. The sort Adam liked.

He promised to be quick, darting downstairs to refill Adam’s water and grab him another cherry popsicle. Adam was sitting up and rubbing the last remnants of the tear tracks from his cheeks.

Adam swallowed with a wince. “God, sor--”

“Don’t fucking say it,” Ronan growled.

Adam sighed. “Okay.”

“I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Okay.”

Adam finished the popsicle and ate a few more crackers before swallowing down the much-needed Tylenol. And at Ronan’s insistence, he downed the rest of the water, too.

“You good?” Ronan asked, moving to grab his laptop again.

Adam nodded, and nestled himself back into Ronan’s side. And then turned over. And then moved to his back. Pull the covers on, then kicked them off, then tugged them halfway up again.

“Jesus, Parrish, make a decision,” Ronan said over judges biting out harsh critiques of so-and-so’s undercooked lamb.

“I’m just,” Adam grunted. “Uncomfortable.”

“No shit.”

Adam’s skin was too warm, too sensitive, too achy. Too much of everything.  Fabric scraped at his skin, like everything he touched was made of burlap. His face felt weird in that way it always did after crying. Anxiety still held his tender, cough-weary lungs in a tight fist. His muscles moaned whenever weight shifted to them. Still he couldn’t get comfortable. Tossing & turning only made his clothes rub more, and his muscle complain more, and his body feel warmer and warmer.

Nothing felt good. He turned one last time to lay at Ronan’s side, surrendering to the inevitable.    

“Thank Christ,” Ronan muttered, once Adam finally stilled.

“Fuck you,” Adam retorted.

“Not in your current state.”

Ronan snickered as Adam weakly slapped his thigh.

They watched the show in silence for a few minutes, Adam shivering occasionally while Ronan traced gentle circles on his back. It wasn’t long before Adam started tossing & turning again.

“A shower might help,” Ronan offered. “Get you out of these gross clothes at least.”

Adam thought for a long minute about that option.

“‘Kay,” he finally said, peeling himself off of Ronan’s chest slowly and unsteadily. He stripped off the sweatshirt and the sweaty t-shirt underneath, goosebumps raising instantaneously, and hobbled to the bathroom.

“Need a chaperon in there?” Ronan called, only half-teasing. Adam replied with a middle finger thrown over his shoulder. Ronan barked out a laugh.

The shower must have been hot--his reddening fingers and toes proved that--but it only felt lukewarm against Adam’s feverish skin. At least the steam felt good, maybe helping to clear some of the anxiety still clawing at his throat from before.  

“Lynch?” Adam called. “Ronan.”

“Jesus, give me half a damn second,” Ronan called back. When he spoke again, it was from the bathroom doorway. “What?”

“Can you grab my shower stuff from my bag?”

“Seriously? Just use my shit.”

“You sure?”

“Fucking Christ, yes,” Ronan groaned.

He slowly scrubbed away the day-old sweat with Ronan’s body wash, the familiar smell a comfort in and of itself. It wasn’t enough to get rid of the lump in his throat, stuck since Ronan had pulled him back to reality from his restless sleep. He leaned against the cool tiles of the shower, lost in the feeling of rivulets soothing his burning cheeks and aching shoulders and trembling legs.

Rationally, he knew he was upset because of the nightmare, because he was ill, because he had just wasted a good 36 hours doing jack shit and while _some_ people would call that a good start to vacation Adam Parrish didn’t operate that way. But logic was being smothered by 102.3 degrees of fever, which meant his feelings were free to spin way too far out of his control.

God, this was so not how he had hoped it would be.

He had spent the weeks since Thanksgiving imagining this month with Ronan. How great it would be to sleep for 8 consecutive hours. Maybe even 9. Or 10! However long his mind allowed. How great it would be to read a book or two or five for fun. Just because he could, not because he had to. How he would work on the farming machines, which gave Ronan one less thing to do, and would prove to be an exciting challenge for his underused mechanic skills. How they would spend Christmas together, and New Years, and they’d visit the new Cabeswater to see Opal and maybe see Gansey and Blue and Henry and he might even swing by Fox Way, because the tarots had been giving him a headache recently which was probably because he was out of practice since school work sort of took priority over reading the thoughts & feelings of magical energy lines. And how he and Ronan would watch shitty movies together and eat shitty food (or maybe nice food if he could persuade Ronan to cook) and they’d laugh about stupid shit until their sides hurt and argue about really stupid shit and would get way too deep and emotional about exceptionally stupid shit while lying on an old blanket beneath the winter constellations as the firepit burns down the embers and their hot chocolate turns too cold to drink.

And it would be everything to him for those precious 28 days between grueling semesters; 28 days of living loud and reckless and and feeling every emotion with more clarity and sharpness and certainty than he ever could when school/work/pride/ambitions were at the center of his orbit instead of the Greywaren; 28 days of Ronan and everything that Ronan was, and nothing that he and Ronan weren’t. 28 dizzying, overwhelming, hot and passionate days that were not in any way nauseating or achy or made his head throb or hallucinate or feel like Virginia's stifling humid haze had settled in his bones 6 months too early….

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not this way at all.

“Parrish,” Ronan called, banging on the doorframe. “You die in here? What did I specifically tell you _not_ to do?”

Adam pushed himself off the wall and fumbled to turn off the water.

“Thanks for answering,” Ronan snarked.

Adam sighed heavily, ripping open the shower curtain to find Ronan gone and a pile of fresh clothes waiting him on the sink counter. He pulled on the t shirt and sweatpants, tugging his arms through the well-worn hoodie sleeves as he trudged back to the bed.

“Figured you’d want something easier to take off or regulate your temperature or whatever the fuck,” Ronan explained. Adam grunted in return.

“Seriously? No ‘wow Ronan thank you so much for being such a thoughtful, caring boyfriend’? Or ‘you’re the best person I’ve ever met thank you for being so generous and letting me, a goddamn contagious mess, use your favorite jacket’?”

“Shut up,” Adam groaned, sitting back down on the bed.

“Wow, not even a half-assed ‘thanks’? Where are your manners? Were you raised in a fucking trailer park?”

Twice prior that joke had gotten a laugh out of Adam. Today did not make it three.

Adam shot him as withering of a glare as a sick person possibly could. Which wasn’t very. “Not in the mood, Lynch,” Adam shot back.

“Yeah, no fucking shit. I can see that now,” Ronan sneered. “The fuck’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Adam sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Did you have a crisis while wasting all my well water? Something crawl up your ass?”

“No, God, just stop.”

“Then tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m sick and tired and that joke wasn’t funny. That’s it.”

“Un-fucking-likely. Is it the nightmare?”

“No.”

“Parrish,” Ronan insisted.

“What?” Adam snapped.

“Tell me.”

“I just did.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me.”

Ronan hadn’t said it harshly--at least, not as harshly as he could have--but the command still made Adam wince. He sighed, drawing his hands over his face. Deep, rattling breath in, half a cough out.

“Sorry,” Adam mumbled. “This just...this isn’t what I wanted for break. What  _we_ wanted.”

“Shut up, Parrish,” Ronan said. “We got a whole month to dick around. A few days less isn’t the end of the world.”

“It’s not...” Adam sighed, coughed, and sighed again. “You’re wasting time with me when you have farm shit to do. And I’m wasting your time just...lying here, being useless as fuck, feeling like total shit... which, whatever it is, you’ll probably catch, too, and then be even further behind on all the crap you put off to hang out with me since we don’t see each other anymore. I...I don’t know...it shouldn’t...you shouldn’t have to waste your time. With this. And it’s just…” he trailed off, voice breaking just a bit. He ran a trembling hand through his hair and set his jaw as best he could.

Time had always been precious to Adam Parrish. Who he spent it with. What he spent it doing. Ronan could see in Adam’s furrowed brow and deepening frown that he was calculating over and over and over again how much time he was losing, how many hours and minutes and seconds he had already wasted stuck in bed, and how many more he would lose tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after. How much less time he’d have to start studying for next semester. How much less time he’d have to visit Opal.

How much less time he’d have to be with Ronan.

Ronan understood, finally. And it hurt his heart, too,  knowing that yes, of course Adam being sick meant less time together doing the inane shit Ronan had hoped they’d be doing. But it also hurt to see Adam’s lower lip quiver as he plummeted deeper and deeper into this spiral.

“Adam,” Ronan said. “Hey. Look at me. It’s okay. We still have plenty of time. Stop stressing.”

“I’m just--”

Ronan cupped Adam’s face, holding his gaze. “Stop. Fucking. Stressing.”

Adam took a deep breath: in through his nose, out through his mouth. Like Ronan taught him to do whenever his heart started to beat too fast or his thoughts started to drag him into dark corners.

“We have less time, yes, but we still have time. Plenty of it. More than enough to raise hell in this shithole of a town,” Ronan insisted softly. “And I don’t know about you, but I’m counting this as hanging out. So really, we’re not wasting anything.”

“I’ve been asleep 75% of the time I’ve been here,” Adam grumbled. “It barely counts.”

“It counts to me, dumbass,” Ronan said, and it was loaded with so much feeling and love that Adam was too overwhelmed to realize a tear had fallen again.

“Jesus, you’re going soft on me,” Ronan said with a smile that suggested he didn’t mind it at all.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but you’d tell me to fuck off again,” Adam replied.

“Damn straight.” Ronan brushed the tear from his cheek with a calloused thumb. Still unnaturally warm, but not so bad anymore.

How strange, Adam thought, that his hands were no longer the work-weary ones.

“Are you done being a shithead about this?” Ronan asked seriously.

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Hey,” Ronan said, touching his forehead to Adam’s. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Adam whispered back, a small smile finally breaking free. “Now get out of my face, loser.”

Ronan replied with a sharp-toothed grin. “Didn’t want to breathe your germy air anyways, asshole.”

He pulled away, and tossed Adam’s phone at him. Adam fumbled the catch.

“What’s this for?” he asked, sitting up to lean against the headboard.

“Grade check.”

“Really determined to win this, aren’t you, Lynch,” Adam sighed, pulling up his student account anyway before coughing again into his elbow.

“You’d better believe it.”

Ronan watched from over his shoulder.

“I reckon they still aren’t up,” Adam said as he clicked through pages. “Professors aren’t exactly known for doing things prior to deadli--”

His eyes widened, jaw going slack.

As. Only As. Not a minus in sight. For all five courses.

Ronan shouted victoriously.

“Straight-fucking-As,” he hollered.

“Holy shit,” Adam whispered.

“You’re a goddamn marvel, Parrish.”

“Dr. Koelle must’ve curved that bio exam…”

“Who the hell cares, dude? You got all As. At  _Yale_ , you motherfucking  _genius_ .”

Adam laughed. A full and joyous thing that, even when interrupted by a series of less-joyful lung hacking, filled him with a light Ronan wished would never, ever dim.

“Who would’ve thought, huh,” Adam sighed, letting his head drop back against the headboard.

“Me,” Ronan replied with a smile: sharp and arrogant and triumphant. “Because I was fucking right.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Asshole,” he said with a smile.

“An asshole who’s always right,” Ronan corrected.

Adam lightly shoved Ronan’s shoulders, a gesture Ronan gave right back. But then Ronan wrapped his arm around his shoulder and pulled him close.

“I’m really fucking proud of you,” Ronan said as he planted a kiss on his cheek. “And I would definitely victory fuck you if you weren’t still a million degrees and probably carrying the next bubonic plague.”

“So romantic,” Adam replied dryly, blushing nonetheless. He yawned, sliding back down the headboard and into the pillows.

“Rest up, genius,” Ronan said. “Gotta get you healthy for next semester so you can fucking crush it again.”

“Gonna enjoy this break first. Pretty sure I earned it.”

“I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you admit to earning a goddamn break.”

“Don’t get used to it,” Adam replied through a yawn.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Ronan said. “Now shut up, go to sleep, and let me get back to my show. It’s almost the season finale and I am so ready to watch these fuckers cook ten courses and cry about their backstories.”

"Save the next season until I can stay awake?" Adam asked. "So we can watch it together?"

Ronan smiled and gave Adam's hand a gentle squeeze. A reminder that he wasn't going anywhere. "Deal."

**Author's Note:**

> Went into this with a vague idea inspired by Lin Manuel Miranda's tweets from a few weeks ago ( here ; and [ here ](https://twitter.com/Lin_Manuel/status/1017930024031223809)) and hoping to practice with character voices & dialogue. Ended up taking three weeks to write this really unnecessarily long thing!!!! I just really love SickFics & hurt/comfort, okay?
> 
> Anyways this is my first fic ever in my entire life, so I hope it's at least vaguely enjoyable! Pls leave comments & critiques; I did this as a skill-building exercise so it's open for constructive criticism. Or, like, we can just chat. I'm cool with that, too. 
> 
> Thanks for stopping by!


End file.
